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This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Here's Xiaofeng Wang's bi

This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Here's Xiaofeng Wang's bio on the Indiana University site.[1] Google Scholar.[2] Archived version of home page at Indiana University.[3] If anybody has a PACER account, please check there. [1] https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/8580.html https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/8580.html [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pONu-5EAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pONu-5EAAAAJ&hl=en [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20240930195057/https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/xw7/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240930195057/https://homes.lud...

cma 2y ago
Unlike the other recent disappearances and deportations to the concentration camp in El Salvador, this one does say it was with a court order.
- lucubratory 2y ago
  Great! Can you provide a link to the court order so we can see?
  - dcrazy 2y ago
    The article author attempted to get the court order but could not find one. This is common when the order is made as part of an ongoing investigation, or else criminals could just watch for their names in PACER to know when to fire up the shredders.
    - lucubratory 2y ago
      So how do we know there is a court order?
      - cma 2y ago
        We don't know 100% for sure, just from their claim. In the other high profile cases recently it was a different agency and they were open that there was no amount of due process.
      - dcrazy 2y ago
        You seem to be coming from the assumption that checks and balances requires granting random outsiders full transparency into the court docket during the investigation phase. That’s not how it has ever worked, because it would tip off those being investigated. Our system allows for challenging the government’s right to execute a search after the search has happened. And it isn’t open to random interlopers who think they’ve spotted a government misstep—you must have standing to challenge a search. The architects of this system didn’t want justice to get caught up in the equivalent of a GitHub pull request war. Eventually the warrant will become unsealed and we can all inspect it.
        lucubratory 2y ago
        Okay, so I'm not allowed to see the court order because I'm a random outsider, got it. What about the family of the person? What about their lawyer? Why can't they see the court order, or if they have seen it why can't they say so?
        dcrazy 2y ago
        It would be especially detrimental to the pursuit of justice if the friends, family, and lawyers of a suspect could find out whether or not a warrant has been issued for them or their stuff before it is executed. Our system works on “trust but verify”. If the cops show up with a warrant they claim they is valid, you trust the warrant is valid, let them do the search, and later verify the warrant is real and that it was issued legally. Doing otherwise is a crime (obstruction of justice).
mvdtnz 2y ago
What evidence do you have that they US government disappeared him? It's just as likely that he is an escaped spy and the university wants nothing to do with him.
- swarnie 2y ago
  Maybe OP is making an assumption based on recent events, it has been happening an awful lot. Has anyone checked Louisiana or El Salvador detention centres for him?
- outer_web 2y ago
  I believe the term is "to John McAfee".
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
[flagged]
- cluckindan 2y ago
  I want to get off Mr. Bones' wild Haskell course.
  - weard_beard 2y ago
    Wait till everyone is in the streets and the power is out, the helis are up and the MRAPS roll in. Nothing more exhillarating than the smell of napalm in the morning. I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but also not. I live in the residential neighborhood where the George Floyd uprising took place. We had the national guard in our local park. We had military helicopters buzzing our home for 3-4 weeks straight. Curfew. Fires. Through it all I was struck by an exhilarating sense of community and it is life affirming, if frightening.
- Muromec 2y ago
  whats the soap box referrs to?
  - LPisGood 2y ago
    People refer to making impassioned arguments as “getting on one’s soapbox.” Picture a small overturned wooden box that a person is standing on to yell to a crowd.
lolinder 2y ago
We have no evidence that Wang "was" disappeared. We know that he's nowhere to be found, that the university put him on leave weeks ago [0], and that the FBI recently searched his home. Notably, the university put him on leave weeks before the FBI searched his home. That sequence is better explained by the hypothesis that Wang vanished himself suddenly and the university called in the FBI to investigate things that they found in the aftermath. (Note that that's still pure speculation, but it's speculation that better accounts for all known facts.) [0] https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-situation-at-indiana-university https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-situati...
- fracus 2y ago
  Doesn't the sequence of events read more like the University found something grave enough to put him on leave and contact the FBI, and for both the teacher and school to keep it quiet?
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    No, not really. That wouldn't explain the gap of weeks.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      Yes. If (in this hypothetical) the university found something worth contacting the FBI about before Wang knew he was made, we'd expect to see FBI action first and university action second, even if the university acted immediately after. The FBI would absolutely not allow the university to tip a suspect off weeks in advance of their planned raids.
    - fracus 2y ago
      Wouldn't the FBI need some time to digest the accusations made by the University and then build a case to pursue an investigation? Hearing the University has been captured by a right wing agenda and having an adversarial relationship with its teachers and students, I'm starting to think any conspiracy is plausible at this point.
CodeWriter23 2y ago
Occam’s Razor suggest he was exfiltrated.
- TheBlight 2y ago
  Seems like the most likely explanation to me. If he were arrested for being a spy, presumably the DOJ would want to showcase it.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Think like a Bayesian. How many spies have been caught lately? of them, how many did the DOJ showcase? Wikipedia has a list of imprisoned spies in the USA. It is pretty sparse, the last spy to be convicted in the USA was in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies Searching the DOJ homepage with the search term “spy” (to see which they have showcased) gives us 209 results, including a bunch of news around the 2009 conviction. The most resent news I found was from 2022 (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-individuals-charged-variously-stalking-harassing-and-spying-us-residents-behalf-prc-0 https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-individuals-cha...) a very vague news which is actually more about harassing private citizen (presumably piggy-banking out of the anti-asian hate following Covid). The most resent news about actual spying against the US government was from 2020 (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-arrested-and-charged-espionage https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-a...) Alexander Yuk Ching Ma. He was actually found guilty in may 2024 (so he is missing from that Wikipedia list). The DOJ article about the conviction doesn’t use the word spy, so it is missing from my search, but here it is: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-sentenced-10-years-prison-conspiracy-commit-espionage https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-s.... Given the above, I think it is safe to bet that if he was arrested for being a spy, the DOJ would indeed want to showecase it. However, spies are very rare, and the likelyhood of OP’s case being a spy is very low. It is much more likely that he disappeared for other reasons.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
diggan 2y ago
> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do Since when? Been happening for a long time, here is just one recent-ish (2021) report: > FFI documented 698 enforced disappearances of immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody between 2017 and 2021 https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/news/2021/8/30/detained-and-disappeared-new-report-documents-hundreds-of-disappearances-in-us-immigration-detention-system https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/news/2021/8/30/detained... Has to be countless more that aren't documented, especially when you take the entire government into account, not just one agency.
- dathinab 2y ago
  lets also not forget how the US has a history especially in the recent ~decade or so to redefine all kind of things as "domestic terrorism" and then use it to remove very fundamental rights from people which at most are activists
- csomar 2y ago
  These are not people that HN/Academia identifies with and thus they are not considered people with full rights. See how the goals moved from rights for every single person, to rights for documented migrants, to rights for citizens only. We are now moving faster to rights for people similar to you but make no mistake this will end up with rights for no one but the king.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    The US has always been very divided on who is considered a US citizen. Atheists, black people, Hawaiians, Germans, Japanese- all of them have found themselves in court.
    - diggan 2y ago
      > Atheists, black people, Hawaiians, Germans, Japanese- all of them have found themselves in court. Even people who are clearly American can find themselves having to defend themselves apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...
dale_huevo 2y ago
> This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Is it typical for the media to write stories when spies surreptitiously sneak out of a country? I speculate this guy was long gone before the feds kicked in his door. Assuming he and his wife were indeed spies of course. Right now we cannot confirm or disconfirm that, but the narrative fits it so far. > Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Do you have any sources that this guy was vanned, besides the very reliable Ars Technica comments section crying about 'fascists' and random schizos on BlueSky?
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dale_huevo 2y ago
    Yes, apologies, original post was misworded and corrected. Everyone is assuming this guy was maliciously 'disappeared', but no evidence has been presented proving that vs. that he vanished on his own. Everything is rage-porn speculation at this point, like a fresh airplane accident where everyone becomes an armchair pilot.
- sc68cal 2y ago
  You're asking someone for sources, after accusing someone of espionage with no sources?
  - runsWphotons 2y ago
    Tons of people above are suggesting he was "disappeared" with no sources (and no real cases of this really happening otherwise, recent cases have all had paperwork). Seems fair to ask and suggest a more likely alternative.
    - hmcq6 2y ago
      How does one provide evidence/sources for a disappearance? I can show you sources that say DB Cooper existed but there’s no evidence of his disappearance by definition so… what do you think you are looking for exactly?
lovich 2y ago
>Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. They are allowed to disappear people simply by virtue of the fact that no one is going to stop them
belter 2y ago
"FBI searches two homes belonging to IU Luddy professor and library analyst" - https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/iu-professor-bloomington-carmel-fbi-search https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/iu-professor-bloomin... "FBI, Homeland Security agents search house on Xavier Court in Bloomington" - https://eu.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2025/03/28/fbi-department-of-homeland-security-agents-search-house-in-bloomington-indiana/82710451007/ https://eu.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2025/03/28...
karaterobot 2y ago
Sure, they "disappeared" him, then forced the University to take down his profile, email address, and office phone. Having scrubbed him from the faculty listing index, he has effectively been removed from history. He's a ghost. Never mind this Ars Technica article, or all of the other information about him on the web. I mean, I get all my news from university phone directories, how about you?
rdtsc 2y ago
> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. How do you mean? Is it that legally it's not allowed to, so it's obviously not what happened here -- it must be someone else or some other government or entity that "disappeared" him. Or, legally it's not allowed to, but they clearly did it and we should be alarmed? In the past US government quite happily droned civilians, experimented on its own citizens, planned coup and coup in all kind of countries, engaged in torture and extra judicial detainment of people in Guantanamo for years.
graemep 2y ago
> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. If a government was disappearing people they would not do it with police raids. The last thing they would want is to take responsibility for it. I have lived in a country where journalists and others were being disappeared, and it was done by unidentifiable people in unmarked vans.
- hmcq6 2y ago
  > unidentifiable people in unmarked vans. This literally happened 4 days ago to Rümeysa Öztürk Or the "cops" who refuesed to identify themselves to Mahmood Khalil's wife?
  - graemep 2y ago
    They were not disappeared (the links below say we know where they went), and they were arrested by people who do have legal powers of arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil#Arrest_and_detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil#Ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%96zt%C3%BCrk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%... I am not saying it is the right thing to do, but it is a very very long way from someone being grabbed, bundled into an unmarked van by people who are never identified (either as individuals or who they work for), and turning up later dead - or never turning up at all.
    - amy214 2y ago
      Exactly, I get a little bit uneasy with people throwing around "got disappeared" - it lands as politically charged. What that means to me is something like Khmer Rouge, or Pinochet throwing thousands of people off planes into the ocean (no parachute), tentatively it means gulag, but even with gulag, you're not disappeared, you find out this person is in a gulag somewhere (though is likely to die), having myself read the Gulag Archipeligo. I'm 100% sure the US government, most governments, have "disappeared" people in a Pinochet style, it's just more rare and likely involves deep state spycraft type things. Even in Guantanamo, people lived, and people were known to be there, and I think that is how people are using "disappeared" i.e. extrajudicial and illegal, but alive and known to be somewhere. It reminds me of people using "violence" to describe writing or speech that make people feel bad, and it's like, okay, if that's what violence means what's the word for getting punched in the face, what's the word for getting tossed off a plane.
rayiner 2y ago
What do you mean by “disappearing people?” We had a foreign spy arrested at my kid’s school (she and her husband sold Navy secrets to China). For obvious reasons, arrest warrants don’t need to be made public. Nor is the FBI required to issue a press release when it arrests someone. It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped.
- pyuser583 2y ago
  This is why habeas corpus is so important. An attorney goes before the court, and demands the client be produced, and a justification be given for their detention. It sounds like such a meaningless right. But it creates a clear line between a legitimate detention and disappearance.
- laretluval 2y ago
  Is there a news article about the spy at your kid’s school?
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  > It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped. Bingo. Dude vanished well before his Uni was a aware and starting making a stink.
frm88 2y ago
New developments: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bizarre-turn-in-bizarre-story https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bizarre-turn-in-bizarre...
hnbad 2y ago
> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Allowed by whom? That's always been the problem with the (especially American) idea of a separation of power or checks and balances being sufficient to stop bad actors. The legislative passes laws, the judicative applies those laws, the executive carries them out, okay. But at the end of the day out of those three the executive is the ones with the guns. Combine this with unitary executive theory and now a single person gets to call the shots (literally, if necessary) while the other two branches become legal window dressing. Under Trump the US has literally deported people and revoked green cards for their alleged affiliations alone - not criminal ones either as that would have had to be decided by a court, instead the pure suspicion is sufficient. Keep in mind that having processes isn't inherently better. The Soviet Union made sure to use mock trials and coerced confessions because it desparately wanted to maintain an appearance of legitimacy. While in Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy the state might have literally just killed you without a trial, the Soviets went to great lengths to create a paper trail for a legalistic justification before killing you (or sending you to a forced labor camp to die of "natural causes"). Institutions don't protect you. Institutions are just other people. If your system of governance depends on the people at the very top acting in good faith on the powers they are granted, it's really just built on wishful thinking.

cma 2y ago

Unlike the other recent disappearances and deportations to the concentration camp in El Salvador, this one does say it was with a court order.

lucubratory 2y ago
Great! Can you provide a link to the court order so we can see?
- dcrazy 2y ago
  The article author attempted to get the court order but could not find one. This is common when the order is made as part of an ongoing investigation, or else criminals could just watch for their names in PACER to know when to fire up the shredders.
  - lucubratory 2y ago
    So how do we know there is a court order?
    - cma 2y ago
      We don't know 100% for sure, just from their claim. In the other high profile cases recently it was a different agency and they were open that there was no amount of due process.
    - dcrazy 2y ago
      You seem to be coming from the assumption that checks and balances requires granting random outsiders full transparency into the court docket during the investigation phase. That’s not how it has ever worked, because it would tip off those being investigated. Our system allows for challenging the government’s right to execute a search after the search has happened. And it isn’t open to random interlopers who think they’ve spotted a government misstep—you must have standing to challenge a search. The architects of this system didn’t want justice to get caught up in the equivalent of a GitHub pull request war. Eventually the warrant will become unsealed and we can all inspect it.
      - lucubratory 2y ago
        Okay, so I'm not allowed to see the court order because I'm a random outsider, got it. What about the family of the person? What about their lawyer? Why can't they see the court order, or if they have seen it why can't they say so?
        dcrazy 2y ago
        It would be especially detrimental to the pursuit of justice if the friends, family, and lawyers of a suspect could find out whether or not a warrant has been issued for them or their stuff before it is executed. Our system works on “trust but verify”. If the cops show up with a warrant they claim they is valid, you trust the warrant is valid, let them do the search, and later verify the warrant is real and that it was issued legally. Doing otherwise is a crime (obstruction of justice).

mvdtnz 2y ago

What evidence do you have that they US government disappeared him? It's just as likely that he is an escaped spy and the university wants nothing to do with him.

swarnie 2y ago
Maybe OP is making an assumption based on recent events, it has been happening an awful lot. Has anyone checked Louisiana or El Salvador detention centres for him?
outer_web 2y ago
I believe the term is "to John McAfee".

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

[flagged]

cluckindan 2y ago
I want to get off Mr. Bones' wild Haskell course.
- weard_beard 2y ago
  Wait till everyone is in the streets and the power is out, the helis are up and the MRAPS roll in. Nothing more exhillarating than the smell of napalm in the morning. I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but also not. I live in the residential neighborhood where the George Floyd uprising took place. We had the national guard in our local park. We had military helicopters buzzing our home for 3-4 weeks straight. Curfew. Fires. Through it all I was struck by an exhilarating sense of community and it is life affirming, if frightening.
Muromec 2y ago
whats the soap box referrs to?
- LPisGood 2y ago
  People refer to making impassioned arguments as “getting on one’s soapbox.” Picture a small overturned wooden box that a person is standing on to yell to a crowd.

lolinder 2y ago

We have no evidence that Wang "was" disappeared. We know that he's nowhere to be found, that the university put him on leave weeks ago [0], and that the FBI recently searched his home. Notably, the university put him on leave weeks before the FBI searched his home. That sequence is better explained by the hypothesis that Wang vanished himself suddenly and the university called in the FBI to investigate things that they found in the aftermath. (Note that that's still pure speculation, but it's speculation that better accounts for all known facts.) [0] https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-situation-at-indiana-university https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-situati...

fracus 2y ago
Doesn't the sequence of events read more like the University found something grave enough to put him on leave and contact the FBI, and for both the teacher and school to keep it quiet?
- lupusreal 2y ago
  No, not really. That wouldn't explain the gap of weeks.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yes. If (in this hypothetical) the university found something worth contacting the FBI about before Wang knew he was made, we'd expect to see FBI action first and university action second, even if the university acted immediately after. The FBI would absolutely not allow the university to tip a suspect off weeks in advance of their planned raids.
  - fracus 2y ago
    Wouldn't the FBI need some time to digest the accusations made by the University and then build a case to pursue an investigation? Hearing the University has been captured by a right wing agenda and having an adversarial relationship with its teachers and students, I'm starting to think any conspiracy is plausible at this point.

CodeWriter23 2y ago

Occam’s Razor suggest he was exfiltrated.

TheBlight 2y ago
Seems like the most likely explanation to me. If he were arrested for being a spy, presumably the DOJ would want to showcase it.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Think like a Bayesian. How many spies have been caught lately? of them, how many did the DOJ showcase? Wikipedia has a list of imprisoned spies in the USA. It is pretty sparse, the last spy to be convicted in the USA was in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies Searching the DOJ homepage with the search term “spy” (to see which they have showcased) gives us 209 results, including a bunch of news around the 2009 conviction. The most resent news I found was from 2022 (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-individuals-charged-variously-stalking-harassing-and-spying-us-residents-behalf-prc-0 https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-individuals-cha...) a very vague news which is actually more about harassing private citizen (presumably piggy-banking out of the anti-asian hate following Covid). The most resent news about actual spying against the US government was from 2020 (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-arrested-and-charged-espionage https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-a...) Alexander Yuk Ching Ma. He was actually found guilty in may 2024 (so he is missing from that Wikipedia list). The DOJ article about the conviction doesn’t use the word spy, so it is missing from my search, but here it is: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-sentenced-10-years-prison-conspiracy-commit-espionage https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-s.... Given the above, I think it is safe to bet that if he was arrested for being a spy, the DOJ would indeed want to showecase it. However, spies are very rare, and the likelyhood of OP’s case being a spy is very low. It is much more likely that he disappeared for other reasons.
  - Spooky23 2y ago

diggan 2y ago

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do Since when? Been happening for a long time, here is just one recent-ish (2021) report: > FFI documented 698 enforced disappearances of immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody between 2017 and 2021 https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/news/2021/8/30/detained-and-disappeared-new-report-documents-hundreds-of-disappearances-in-us-immigration-detention-system https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/news/2021/8/30/detained... Has to be countless more that aren't documented, especially when you take the entire government into account, not just one agency.

dathinab 2y ago
lets also not forget how the US has a history especially in the recent ~decade or so to redefine all kind of things as "domestic terrorism" and then use it to remove very fundamental rights from people which at most are activists
csomar 2y ago
These are not people that HN/Academia identifies with and thus they are not considered people with full rights. See how the goals moved from rights for every single person, to rights for documented migrants, to rights for citizens only. We are now moving faster to rights for people similar to you but make no mistake this will end up with rights for no one but the king.
- Yeul 2y ago
  The US has always been very divided on who is considered a US citizen. Atheists, black people, Hawaiians, Germans, Japanese- all of them have found themselves in court.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > Atheists, black people, Hawaiians, Germans, Japanese- all of them have found themselves in court. Even people who are clearly American can find themselves having to defend themselves apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...

dale_huevo 2y ago

> This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Is it typical for the media to write stories when spies surreptitiously sneak out of a country? I speculate this guy was long gone before the feds kicked in his door. Assuming he and his wife were indeed spies of course. Right now we cannot confirm or disconfirm that, but the narrative fits it so far. > Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Do you have any sources that this guy was vanned, besides the very reliable Ars Technica comments section crying about 'fascists' and random schizos on BlueSky?

dragonwriter 2y ago
[flagged]
- dale_huevo 2y ago
  Yes, apologies, original post was misworded and corrected. Everyone is assuming this guy was maliciously 'disappeared', but no evidence has been presented proving that vs. that he vanished on his own. Everything is rage-porn speculation at this point, like a fresh airplane accident where everyone becomes an armchair pilot.
sc68cal 2y ago
You're asking someone for sources, after accusing someone of espionage with no sources?
- runsWphotons 2y ago
  Tons of people above are suggesting he was "disappeared" with no sources (and no real cases of this really happening otherwise, recent cases have all had paperwork). Seems fair to ask and suggest a more likely alternative.
  - hmcq6 2y ago
    How does one provide evidence/sources for a disappearance? I can show you sources that say DB Cooper existed but there’s no evidence of his disappearance by definition so… what do you think you are looking for exactly?

lovich 2y ago

>Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. They are allowed to disappear people simply by virtue of the fact that no one is going to stop them

belter 2y ago

"FBI searches two homes belonging to IU Luddy professor and library analyst" - https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/iu-professor-bloomington-carmel-fbi-search https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/iu-professor-bloomin... "FBI, Homeland Security agents search house on Xavier Court in Bloomington" - https://eu.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2025/03/28/fbi-department-of-homeland-security-agents-search-house-in-bloomington-indiana/82710451007/ https://eu.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/local/2025/03/28...

karaterobot 2y ago

Sure, they "disappeared" him, then forced the University to take down his profile, email address, and office phone. Having scrubbed him from the faculty listing index, he has effectively been removed from history. He's a ghost. Never mind this Ars Technica article, or all of the other information about him on the web. I mean, I get all my news from university phone directories, how about you?

rdtsc 2y ago

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. How do you mean? Is it that legally it's not allowed to, so it's obviously not what happened here -- it must be someone else or some other government or entity that "disappeared" him. Or, legally it's not allowed to, but they clearly did it and we should be alarmed? In the past US government quite happily droned civilians, experimented on its own citizens, planned coup and coup in all kind of countries, engaged in torture and extra judicial detainment of people in Guantanamo for years.

graemep 2y ago

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. If a government was disappearing people they would not do it with police raids. The last thing they would want is to take responsibility for it. I have lived in a country where journalists and others were being disappeared, and it was done by unidentifiable people in unmarked vans.

hmcq6 2y ago
> unidentifiable people in unmarked vans. This literally happened 4 days ago to Rümeysa Öztürk Or the "cops" who refuesed to identify themselves to Mahmood Khalil's wife?
- graemep 2y ago
  They were not disappeared (the links below say we know where they went), and they were arrested by people who do have legal powers of arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil#Arrest_and_detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil#Ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%96zt%C3%BCrk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%... I am not saying it is the right thing to do, but it is a very very long way from someone being grabbed, bundled into an unmarked van by people who are never identified (either as individuals or who they work for), and turning up later dead - or never turning up at all.
  - amy214 2y ago
    Exactly, I get a little bit uneasy with people throwing around "got disappeared" - it lands as politically charged. What that means to me is something like Khmer Rouge, or Pinochet throwing thousands of people off planes into the ocean (no parachute), tentatively it means gulag, but even with gulag, you're not disappeared, you find out this person is in a gulag somewhere (though is likely to die), having myself read the Gulag Archipeligo. I'm 100% sure the US government, most governments, have "disappeared" people in a Pinochet style, it's just more rare and likely involves deep state spycraft type things. Even in Guantanamo, people lived, and people were known to be there, and I think that is how people are using "disappeared" i.e. extrajudicial and illegal, but alive and known to be somewhere. It reminds me of people using "violence" to describe writing or speech that make people feel bad, and it's like, okay, if that's what violence means what's the word for getting punched in the face, what's the word for getting tossed off a plane.

rayiner 2y ago

What do you mean by “disappearing people?” We had a foreign spy arrested at my kid’s school (she and her husband sold Navy secrets to China). For obvious reasons, arrest warrants don’t need to be made public. Nor is the FBI required to issue a press release when it arrests someone. It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped.

pyuser583 2y ago
This is why habeas corpus is so important. An attorney goes before the court, and demands the client be produced, and a justification be given for their detention. It sounds like such a meaningless right. But it creates a clear line between a legitimate detention and disappearance.
laretluval 2y ago
Is there a news article about the spy at your kid’s school?
red-iron-pine 2y ago
> It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped. Bingo. Dude vanished well before his Uni was a aware and starting making a stink.

frm88 2y ago

New developments: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bizarre-turn-in-bizarre-story https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bizarre-turn-in-bizarre...

hnbad 2y ago

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Allowed by whom? That's always been the problem with the (especially American) idea of a separation of power or checks and balances being sufficient to stop bad actors. The legislative passes laws, the judicative applies those laws, the executive carries them out, okay. But at the end of the day out of those three the executive is the ones with the guns. Combine this with unitary executive theory and now a single person gets to call the shots (literally, if necessary) while the other two branches become legal window dressing. Under Trump the US has literally deported people and revoked green cards for their alleged affiliations alone - not criminal ones either as that would have had to be decided by a court, instead the pure suspicion is sufficient. Keep in mind that having processes isn't inherently better. The Soviet Union made sure to use mock trials and coerced confessions because it desparately wanted to maintain an appearance of legitimacy. While in Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy the state might have literally just killed you without a trial, the Soviets went to great lengths to create a paper trail for a legalistic justification before killing you (or sending you to a forced labor camp to die of "natural causes"). Institutions don't protect you. Institutions are just other people. If your system of governance depends on the people at the very top acting in good faith on the powers they are granted, it's really just built on wishful thinking.